Serving up innovation.

As the largest food manufacturer in North America and second in the world, Kraft knows the benefits of freshness. Thats why the company turned to Apple® iPhone™ 3G for a fresh approach to connecting with both staff and customers. In addition to supporting iPhone for employee use, Kraft has developed an iPhone app, iFood Assistant, that helps consumers shop for and prepare meals using Kraft products.

With world renowned brands, including Nabisco, Philadelphia, and Milka, Kraft, based in Northfield, IL, has annual revenues of $42 billion and more than 100,000 employees worldwide. Despite the companys huge scale, deploying and managing iPhone for employees has been practically effortless for IT.

“We procure the phone, configure it, and deploy it,” Diedrich explains. The company maintains a basic Web page with iPhone configuration instructions, and an active online user group offers help to the user community.

In addition to providing the phone to specific groups, any employee who has an iPhone, or purchases a new iPhone will be able to access their Kraft e-mail — an option that large numbers of Kraft employees have already taken advantage of. “Our people decided they wanted iPhone,” says Mark Dajani, Senior Vice President of Global Information Systems. “It wasn't one of those things IT decided for them.”

Communication Without Borders

Kraft employees rely on their iPhones for push email, calendar, and contacts. By connecting directly with Microsoft Exchange Server, iPhone 3G gives the companys international workforce enterprise-grade access to essential business information.

“When the new features in iPhone 2.0 came out, we knew it was enterprise-ready,” says Dajani. “The email, calendar, contacts and security components were critical for Krafts wide-scale deployment.”

iPhone also serves as an internal communications conduit. Kraft employees can listen to audio messages, dubbed “Kraft Casts,” from the CEO and other executives on their iPhones to stay up-to-date on the latest corporate strategies and branding initiatives. “iPhone allows us to communicate with our employees in a way that is more visual than having them sit and read text,” says Diedrich.

Krafts innovative use of iPhone reflects a growing corporate necessity for mobile, wireless, easy-to-manage communication across multiple time zones. “There's tremendous opportunity for us to increase productivity by removing the barriers of location,” says Diedrich. “With iPhone, employees can be at home, on the road, or with a customer, and still provide the services they need to make Kraft successful.”

An Appetizing App

Based on the popularity of iPhone within Kraft, the company cooked up its own application for the iPhone App Store, called iFood Assistant. The app gives consumers more than 7,000 delicious recipes, a library of instructional cooking videos, full-meal shopping lists, and a store locator — all accessible via iPhone or iPod touch.

With iPhone, Kraft can deliver interactive, consumer-focused content where and when its customers need it. “We're able to make our content come alive on iPhone,” says Ed Kaczmarek, Krafts Director of Innovation, New Services. “It provides the best consumer experience available.”

Kraft built iFood Assistant with iPhone SDK and Apple developer tools. Kaczmarek describes the development process as straightforward and quick. Now that the app is available to the public, Kraft expects the downloads, plus potential content partnerships, to introduce new revenue streams.

By making the most of the groundbreaking features and capabilities of iPhone, Kraft shows its commitment to expanding its business through mobility and innovation. “iPhone is ready for business,” says Kaczmarek. “All the tools are there, plus the security we demand. And the added benefit is that we can develop compelling applications.”